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Oueida pleads guilty to drug crimes

Mark Russell

An overhead view of the mansion, complete with an eight-hole golf course. Photo: Google Earth

When multimillionaire accused drug kingpin Mohammed Oueida was arrested, police said he was living in a $2.8 million mansion with an eight-hole golf course, a swimming pool, tennis court and wine cellar, and had a Ferrari 360 Spider, a light plane, and $6 million in a Swiss bank account.

Today he is being held in 22-hour a day lockdown in Barwon Prison's Melaleuca high-security unit.

Oueida, 36, pleaded guilty in the County Court on Thursday to trafficking and manufacturing methamphetamines, dealing in the proceeds of crime, and possessing an unregistered semi-automatic rifle.

The maximum penalty is 25 years' jail.

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Oueida was arrested in April last year as part of an investigation of a nationwide amphetamine trafficking ring.

The Australian Federal Police described Oueida at an earlier court hearing as the "head of an organised crime syndicate involved in large-scale manufacture and trafficking of narcotics".

Prosecutor Richard Pirrie told the court on Thursday that, in March 2010, the Australian Crime Commission, Victoria Police, the AFP and Customs set up a joint agency investigation to "target the criminal activities of Oueida and his associates".

The investigation included the use of telephone intercepts, listening devices, surveillance and an undercover police officer.

Mr Pirrie said Oueida met the undercover officer in August 2010 and handed him a shopping bag containing 10,053 pink pills stamped with an "M" logo.

Oueida wanted $6.50 for each pill, which had a 25 per cent purity of methorphan (used in the manufacture of ecstasy).

Oueida, who was paid $65,000 by the undercover officer for the drugs, claimed the pills had the same effects as ecstasy.

He used the money to pay off part of his home loan and buy a Nissan Maxima and Volkswagen Jetta.

On another occasion the undercover officer met Oueida at a cafe in Lonsdale Street and handed him a bag containing $80,000 cash. Oueida had been sitting with a man he introduced as his lawyer.

Mr Pirrie said the undercover officer ended up paying $235,000 on top of the initial $65,000 to Oueida for drugs. The money paid by police was never recovered.

The prosecutor said Oueida was using a couple of cooks to manufacture drugs for him and would make regular trips to a clandestine drug laboratory outside Melbourne, "travelling in his Ferrari and flying . . . in a light plane he had purchased in about May 2010".

When police raided Oueida's Greenvale property on April 7 last year they found a loaded semi-automatic rifle, a loaded .357 Magnum revolver and a shooter's vest.

Two boxes of ammunition containing 100 bullets were found in a rubbish bin in the kitchen, $7000 cash in a safe in the wine cellar, a set of Harley Davidson keys, a Ferrari key and a Lexus.

Defence barrister Remy van de Wiel, QC, told the court Oueida had committed the crimes when under pressure to pay money to the Kheir family.

"There's no doubt the Kheirs are pretty frightening people. If they ask you to do something, you do it," Mr van de Wiel said.

He said Oueida was kidnapped at one stage at gunpoint from his home by two of the Kheir brothers and others in July 2010 and was shot seven months later when having a shower in his garage, suffering a minor leg injury.

Mr van de Wiel said Oueida ran a number of businesses including a chicken shop, a fruit business, a car wash and a butcher's shop. He was also a car dealer, had a timber concession in the Solomon Islands and was involved in a house building project in Pakistan.

The defence lawyer said Oueida had not owned the Ferrari but just had the use of it for a couple of days before the gear box blew up.

He described Oueida as "a terrible show-off".

"He's like these people like Alan Bond. They're multimillionaires today and they're broke tomorrow."

Mr Pirrie said a substantial amount of Oueida's drug trafficking was done to support his extravagant lifestyle.

He said Oueida chose to play for high stakes but what brought him undone was the brave efforts of the undercover officer who risked his life to catch him.

"Oueida had a lifestyle of the rich and famous ... and this is all achieved by a man who has a taxable income of $92,000 in 2009," the prosecutor said.

Oueida was seen at one stage in CCTV footage with his bodyguards holding the semi-automatic rifle at the front of his house and had been referred to as the boss in intercepted phone calls.

Mr Pirrie said that in relation to the Ferrari, Oueida had taken the car from a drug dealer who owed him $300,000. Oueida denies this.